


nobody really wants to know the future, we just want to hear "you'll be alright"

by RuthAldine



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F, Family Dynamics, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, My first fic, underused characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuthAldine/pseuds/RuthAldine
Summary: Ruth has a vision about a possible future, she and her friends decide to investigate. Shenanigans ensue.Title is from "You Are Loved" by Defiance, Ohio.
Relationships: Irene Adler (X-Men)/Raven | Mystique, Ruth Aldine & Alisa Tager, Ruth Aldine & Hisako Ichiki, Ruth Aldine & Rogue (X-Men), Ruth Aldine/Alisa Tager
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	nobody really wants to know the future, we just want to hear "you'll be alright"

**Author's Note:**

> This takes places prior to Age of X-Man and Krakoa, there are also some slight deviations from canon within that.  
> Rogue never joined the Avengers and is still working as a counselor of sorts for the school like she did in Legacy.  
> There is a character who appears near the end who was dead in comics during this period as well.

Ruth woke up with a jolt, she had just finished a particularly bad dream. She got them a lot, actually, they were mostly grisly visions of her and her friend’s possible futures. She normally tried not to pay too much attention to them, they never were all that likely to happen, what with all of the other futures she saw, and people didn’t like it when she brought them up. This one was different though, and she was trying to make sense of it when all of a sudden, her roommate interrupted her thoughts.

“Could you try not screaming when you wake up maybe?” Pixie scoffed.

Ruth looked over to the other bed in the room and saw Pixie rubbing her eyes as she woke up. Pixie normally avoided getting up before 10:30, and it was 8:27 so she wasn’t very pleased.

“Sorry,  -yes-  just another bad dream,  -thank you-  you know?” said Ruth, a little embarrassed.

“Yeah, I know.” responded Pixie, annoyed. “So tell me, how do we all die in this one?”

“I’m,  -sorry-  I’m not sure. I’m still trying to piece it  -please-  together. Something about the  -no-  Marauders, or maybe the MLF.”

“Uh huh”, Pixie said, as she put her head back into the pillow, “Well wake me up whenever the Nasty Boys attack or whatever it was you saw.”  
  


Ruth got dressed and went down to the kitchen for some breakfast. She had almost completely forgotten the dream as she ate cereal, when her friend Alisa walked in. Alisa, also known as Cipher, generally liked her privacy and stayed invisible using her powers most of the time, but Ruth was able to sense her with her powers. Ruth also had a bit of a crush, but she never let that on.

“What’s up ‘fold?”, Alisa said, sitting herself down next to Ruth.

“Oh,  -sorry-  not much.” She said, putting down her bowl. “Could we  -no-  study outside today?  -thank you-  I think Pixie is mad at me again,  -sorry-  so I am probably going to stay out of the room for a while.”

“Sure” Alisa responded with a slight laugh, “So you woke her up again? What was it this time?”

“I’m still  -please-  figuring it out, there was a group of bad guys and  -yes-  I think you might have been there too”

“Oh yeah?” Alisa asked. “What else did you see?”

She wasn’t sarcastic or dismissive like how Pixie or the other kids Ruth knew would be while listening to her. Alisa actually listened to what she was saying, even if both of them knew that the particular vision they were talking about didn’t have much meaning to it. This one did have meaning though, they could both feel it.

Ruth paused for a moment to try and remember what else was in the vision, “uhm… There were some  -sorry-  other people with us I think. Not  -no-  students I don’t think,  -sorry-  teachers maybe.”

All of a sudden, Beast walked into the kitchen.

“You should talk to yourself so much Ruth.” He said as he walked over to the fridge. “I fret it may interfere with your ability to relate with the other students.”

Cipher snorted at this and turned to look at Ruth, still invisible.

“S-sorry,  -yes-  you might be right.” Ruth stammered before she stood up and walked out of the room to get to class, a little embarrassed.

“Oh dear” Beast sighed, “I do worry about that girl.”  
  


“You know,  -pardon-  you could have turned visible there.  -sorry-  Helped me out a little bit?” Ruth said as the two walked down the hall.

“Well it's not like you couldn’t have said anything.” Alisa replied, punching her in the shoulder.

“I know you don’t  -no-  like people knowing you are  -sorry-  there most of the time”

“Haha, it's not really that big a deal anymore, people know I exist now, I just stay invisible out of habit I guess.”

“Well,  -yes-  why didn’t you ”

Ruth was cut short by her friend Hisako walking up beside her..

“Hey Ruth,” she said, “Is Alisa with you too?”

Alisa floated around Hisako and turned visible right in front of her face. “Boo.”

Hisako’s armor formed around her as she jumped. “Shit! You know I hate it when you do that kind of stuff.”

“Haha, yeah I do.” she laughed.

“Yeah yeah you’re real funny” she said as she rolled her eyes, “Why do you even bother hanging out with this girl, Ruth?”

“Hey,  -sorry-  the bell is about to ring  -yes-  I think, maybe we should get to class.” Ruth said, wanting to change the subject.  
  


The three of them had English Lit together, which was taught by Gambit of all people. The students were pretty sure he didn’t have any actual teaching credentials, and that suspicion was only further reinforced when he had them all read Dune for class. Today he was giving a lecture on the symbolism behind the spice in the book, Ruth wasn’t really paying attention and starting to drift off. As she did, she wondered about the vision she had the night before, and what it could possibly mean. Eventually she fell completely asleep.

As she slept, she experienced the same sight of the future that she had before. There were eight or nine figures, she couldn’t quite make most of them out but they were in two groups. One was definitely herself, and her friends Hisako and Alisa were there too. There were two other people with them who seemed a little older, like their teacher’s ages. The other group had a big guy with four arms, a woman, and a skinnier guy. They were fighting outside somewhere, possibly close to the mansion. Ruth could hear someone saying her name, but she couldn’t place the voice. At the end she could see the source of the voice, a woman in a long cape. 

Ruth was woken up by the bell ringing. As everyone gathered their stuff to go to the next class, she went over to her friends to tell them about the vision she had while she slept. Hisako spoke first.

“And you think this one is going to happen for sure Ruth?”

“Yes,  -pardon-  I think so. If I get it  -sorry-  twice like this then it's  -yes-  pretty much guaranteed.”

“Who do you think those other people were?” Alisa asked. “And the woman in the cape?”

“I don’t  -no-  know.” Ruth responded. “It  -pardon-  sounded like she knew me,  -thank you-  and the voice was familiar, but I’m not sure from  -sorry-  where.”

“Well let's go find out.” Cipher said. “If it's going to happen to us, let's get it over with!”

“I’m not sure if that's a great idea.” Hisako said. “We should probably tell one of the full XMen about it and besides, we’ve got class to go to.”

“Fuck class, if we are going to end up fighting some random villains, I’d at least like to choose when! Besides, you’ve been on a bunch of missions with them, Armor. You practically  _ are _ a full X- Man.”

“Hisako  -thank you-  is right.” Ruth interrupted. “We should  -yes-  tell somebody. There’s  -sorry-  no point in going now anyway,  -pardon-  it seemed like it was dark out.”

“Okay then, fine.” Alisa said. “Who are we going to tell?”

“Rogue  -thank you, sorry-  would understand. And I  -yes-  feel she might be connected somehow.”

  
  


Rogue was a counselor of sorts at the school. While on Utopia, she started helping younger mutants with their problems, both power related and personal, and when they moved to Westchester it evolved into a more official role. She had a cute little office with comfortable chairs and a window that you could see the path down to the lake from. Hisako and Alisa had class to get to, so they decided it was for the best if Ruth talked to Rogue by herself. 

Ruth always liked Rogue a lot. Of all of the X-Men, she looked up to her the most. It might have been because of thow she was the one of the more confident and powerful members of the team, or it could have been because of the fact that she was possibly Ruth’s great aunt. Either way, she tried to spend time around her and usually told her about any big visions that she got, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when she came in. After some pleasantries, Ruth sat down and Rogue started the conversation.

“So what brings you in today? I know you don’t like people assuming all your visions are about our death all the time but it always scares me just a bit when you come in about one.”

“No, nothing  -sorry-  that serious.” Ruth replied, now a little embarrassed that she might be wasting Rogue’s time with this. “I just  -yes-  had this vision that is going to happen”

“Going to, huh? Well, if you are that sure of it why don’t you tell me about it.”

Ruth nodded and started explaining the vision the same way she had to her friends, neglecting to mention that the second place she saw it was while she was asleep in Rogue’s husband’s class. Rogue seemed concerned about what she was saying, but her expression changed when Ruth mentioned the caped women at the end of the vision.

“Ruth, that voice you’ve heard, it wasn’t Destiny’s was it?”

“I don’t  -sorry-  know, I only met her once  -pardon-  a few years ago.” She said, confused. “Why do you ask?  -thank you-  Destiny is dead isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is. Has been for a long time now.” 

Rogue paused and looked down for a moment before looking back at Blindfold. 

“I only bring it up because she’s been in some of my dreams recently. Probably just a coincidence of course, my dreams don’t mean anything like yours.” Rogue laughed.

“What should we  -no-  do then? I don’t really want to  -yes-  fight these people, whoever they  -thank you-  are.”

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Just try and stay inside your room tonight and I’ll tell some of the others to look out for if anyone like you described comes by the mansion.”

“Okay  -yes-  I’ll do that.” Ruth wasn’t entirely convinced that there was any way to prevent this but she trusted Rogue to handle it. “I’ve got to get to class.  -pardon-  I’ll see you later.” She smiled and walked out of the room.

Rogue smiled back and said, “Of course Ruth, any time.”

After she had left, Rogue took a note to remind herself later to tell her teammates about a potential attack. While she did so, all she could think about was how she almost hoped that Destiny had some involvement in this somehow, just so that she could maybe see her mom again.  
  


Ruth went through the rest of the day trying to not worry too much. She saw stuff that didn’t come true all the time, and even if it was going to happen, the X-Men would be able to handle it like how Rogue said. She could see the near future up to a few hours ahead pretty reliably, even while awake, and nothing out of the ordinary ever seemed like it was going to happen then either. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to occur. It was strange, this much uncertainty about something this big, normally by this point she knew for sure if some big fight was going to happen, but not this time. Ruth told her friends about her conversation with Rogue and they agreed that it was for the best if they waited it out, but made her promise to tell them if anything happened.

As Ruth slept that night, she experienced another vision. It started out the same as the one before, but the voice calling out to her continued to speak. It said:

“Ruth, they are coming. You three must go. You will meet others. She has misunderstood. Leave now.”

Hearing it this time, Ruth was sure it was Destiny’s voice talking to her.

And with that she woke up. Fortunately, she did not scream this time, so Pixie was still asleep. She took a moment to collect herself and try to understand the message. From what she could tell, what she saw in her vision was going to be happening soon, and she and her friends needed to stop it. She got dressed into her uniform and called both Hisako and Alisa, making sure to whisper so she wouldn’t wake her roommate. She told them about the developments in her vision and to meet her in front of the mansion as soon as they could. After some bitching about waking them up at 1:30 PM, they agreed. As Ruth tried to leave her room, she heard groaning from Pixie’s bed as she woke up. Pixie squinted at Ruth in the dark and said: 

“Where are you going? It’s like, super early.”

“Uhh…  -sorry-  nowhere?” Ruth replied, failing at her attempt to not sound suspicious”

“Fine. Don’t tell me.” Pixie said before laying back down and falling back to sleep almost instantly.

Ruth sighed in relief and continued to the front of the mansion.  
  


The three of them met in the front of the school. They were trying to sneak out to the front of campus, staying low so that anybody at the mansion wouldn’t see them leave, when they heard people laughing near the front gate. They looked up ahead and saw Rogue and Gambit, seemingly coming home after a night out. The girls looked at each other, unsure what to do, before hiding behind a large tree.

“Shit, they are going to catch us, what should we do?” Hisako asked.

“They might catch  _ you both _ , but I can turn invisible.” Alisa said, smugly.

“All  -pardon-  three of us need to be there” Ruth said. “We need to get off campus -yes-  and to wherever this vision takes place without  -thank you-  getting caught. Unless…”

“Unless what, Ruth?” Hisako asked.

“Well, the voice in the vision did  -sorry-  say we’d meet others, and there  -no-  were people with us in the part with the  -thank you-  fight…”

“So now you’re saying you  _ want _ to get caught?” Alisa didn’t sound impressed by this plan.

“It kind of makes sense.” Hisako started, “I mean we’ve got to fight what, the Little Brotherhood, I’d feel much more confident about it with two full time X-Men helping out.”

All of a sudden, the girls heard Gambit yell from the otherside of the tree.

“Who’s there? Dis is private property, you better come out with your hands up.”

“Well shit,” Alisa said, “guess this means we don’t have to argue over whether or not we are getting caught.”

The three of them came out and around the tree to see Gambit standing with a charged card ready and Rogue standing besides him ready to fight as well. The teachers dropped their stances when they saw who it was who were hiding.

“Ruth what are you doing out? I thought we agreed you were going to stay on campus and the X-Men would handle anything that came up.” Rogue said, a little disappointed.

Ruth blushed, she was a little embarrassed to be caught like this by someone she looked up to so much.

“We were,  -no, sorry- but then I got another vision -yes-  saying I needed to go.”

Rogue wasn’t impressed by this excuse. 

“Uh huh, and did this new vision tell you anything else? It’s not that I don’t trust you girl, but I just don’t wanting you or your friends getting hurt”

“Hey we can handle ourselves!” Alisa interrupted

“Yeah I was on the X-Men too, you know!” Hisako added in.

Ruth ignored them and said, “Rogue, you  -yes-  were right, it was Destiny talking to me  -pardon-  in the vision. And I think you and Gambit  -thank you-  are supposed to come with us.”

Rogue looked at Ruth for a moment before finally saying, “Well fuck.”

She grabbed Gambit’s arm and pulled him aside to talk to him for a moment.

“I think we need to go with her Remy.”

“You really think dis is a good idea Rogue? Listening to dis girl?”

"I don’t know… but if she’s right, if there’s a chance that Irene’s back then…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”   


“Besides, she’s sort of my niece, maybe, I should help here with this.”

“Say no more Rogue.”

The two of them came back to the three girls.

“Okay then Ruth, where are we going?” Rogue asked.

“Uhmm…” Blindfold took a moment to see what they did in their own near future. “Down the road,  -pardon-  about a half mile I think.”

“Looks like we are walking.” Gambit said. “Don’t want to wake nobody up by driving off.”

Mystique grimaced as she looked through the binoculars and down the path in front of them. A few days ago she had heard that the X-Mansion had someone of great interest to her, and she wasn’t going to let anything stop her from getting in. She was being as careful as possible with this break in. They had wisened up to her ‘pretend to be a student’ trick, so she had to do it the old fashioned way. She and her two partners snuck through the woods surrounding the road leading up to the school, on foot, to avoid as much detection as possible. She grabbed the nearest two idiot mutant criminals she could find, Forearm and Pyro, to bring to make a distraction while she snuck in. She had the whole thing planned, out which means she was not happy when she saw a group of five walking towards her.

“Hey Mystique, what exactly did you need to break into the mansion for again? I don’t think you ever told us.” Forearm asked.

“Shut up.” she snapped back.

Pyro then asked, “Yeah and when were we going to get paid for this?”

“Shut up, shut up, oh my god you idiots are going to get us caught.”

“What are you talking about Mystique, we are still a little while off from the school, no one is going to hear us.” Pyro said.

Mystique shoved the binoculars into his hands. “Look, down there, some X-Men are coming towards us.”

“I don’t think they’ll be able to hear us though, they are pretty far away still.” Forearm said.

“Look, I’m not interested in potentially risking making a mistake on this mission somehow, especially if it involves listening to you two dumbasses ask stupid questions.”

Pyro peered through the binoculars. “I think most of those people are kids Mystique. We could probably take them out pretty quick if you are that worried about it.” He handed it to Forearm.

“Oh yeah, looks like it's only two full X-Men, the three of us could take ‘em out real quick and quiet before we keep moving.”

Mystique stood there for a moment, thinking to herself. “Fine. Just be quiet about it, and as little fire as possible until we actually get to the mansion.” She glared at Pyro.  
  


As Ruth walked with the others, she tried her best to keep track of anything unexpected possibly happening in the near future. It was hard to focus on the future like that for long periods but she’d gotten better at it recently. Nothing happened for a while, and she was getting really worried she had gotten it wrong, and was leading her friends on a wild goose chase. Then she got a hint of something.

“We  -sorry, sorry, no- are about to be ambushed.”

The rest of the group looked at her in surprise.

“What did you jus-” Gambit wasn’t able to finish before Forearm threw himself out from behind a rock and tackled him.

Pyro came out from a collection of trees he was standing behind and said “Okay X-kids, we are going to do this real quiet and quick, get me? Give up now and we won’t hurt you too bad when we know you out.”

“X-kids? I’m married, dumbass.” Rogue said before punching him in the face.

And with that a fight broke loose. Alisa went invisible immediately to get the upper hand on her opponents, while Hisako formed her armor around her. Gambit was able to get Forearm off of him, pushing him close to the three girls. Armor took this opportunity to start grappling with him, while Gambit charged some cards. Cipher floated over to Pyro, to try and give Rogue some assistance. She didn’t seem to need it though, as she took a blast of fire without flinching. 

“Hey not too much fire she said” Forearm grunted.

“Oh shut it, that was barely nothing.” Pyro responded.

“She, who’s she?” Gambit asked as he launched a couple cards into Forearm’s side.

“Mystique.” Blindfold interrupted. “They are  -pardon-  being led by Mystique.”

As she finished the sentence, Mystique came up behind her, grabbed her by the neck, and held a gun up to her head.

“Okay I’ve had enough of all this, you’re all going to let me get into the mansion, or the girl is going to get it.”

The rest of the fight stopped abruptly.

Mystique… mom, put her down, we can talk this out.” Rogue pleaded.

“I’m not compromising on this, I need to do this. You’ll understand after.”

“I can’t think of anything that justifies bringing these losers to break into the school and holding a gun up to one of my student’s heads!”

“It’s Irene, Rogue, she’s back… she’s called to me. There’s something in that mansion that has to do for her and I won’t dare pass up an opportunity to see her again.”

Before Rogue had a chance to respond, Cipher dove at Mystique, still invisible. The impact startled her enough to make her pull the trigger on impulse, but her being knocked to the ground meant the bullet only hit Ruth’s arm.

Cipher turned visible again, “Ruth! Oh, my god.” She said before diving down next to her. “I wasn’t thinking. Oh my god I’m so sorry, oh my god.” 

Ruth lied on the ground, holding her wound. “Irene is not  -pardon, sorry- not there. You misinterpreted her  -thank you-  Mystique.”

Mystique stood up and looked down at her. “How could you even know, girl? You have nothing to do with any of this! She is my wife! Do you understand me? I will see her again! You are nothing to me!”

“I’m her great granddaughter.” Ruth said calmly.

“Oh.” Mystique fell silent.

Gambit took the opportunity to hit her in the back of her head with his staff, knocking her unconscious. Everyone took a moment to collect themselves. Pyro and Forearm managed to sneak off in the confusion, but they had other things to worry about. Alisa was still with Ruth, still distressed about causing her to get hurt. Ruth assured her that she was going to be okay, but she was very clearly in a lot of pain. Rogue said they’d get her to the medical room as fast as they could. Hisako volunteered to carry Mystique back since she could carry her easily with her armor. Alisa helped Ruth up, and continued to hold her hand for the walk back. None of them talked much while heading back to the mansion, they instead all tried to process what had just happened. 

  
  


When they finally reached the school, Gambit and Hisako were sent to take Mystique down to the jail cells in the basement while Rogue and Alisa accompanied Ruth to the medical room. It was still pretty early in the morning, but Dr. Rao was awake and able to treat her wound despite that. Once Ruth was bandaged and feeling okay, Rogue went down to join Gambit and Armor in the brig.

“You shouldn’t  -sorry-  feel bad about this Alisa, it was actually  -thank you-  one of the better outcomes of that situation  -pardon- .” Ruth said.

“You say that, but it still feels like I got someone I really care about shot in the arm.”

Ruth sat there silently for a second before saying, “Thank you for sticking  -yes-  with me on this. It really -no-  means a lot.”

“Of course.” Alisa looked at her and smiled. “Like I said, I really care about you, I wouldn’t want you to do this alone.”

There was another short silence before she continued.

“Ruth? Would it be okay if-”

“Yes.” Ruth interrupted before kissing her.

Once they pulled away they both blushed. They looked up to see Hisako standing at the door.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Mystique said she wanted to see you Ruth. Feel free to not listen to her since she did, you know, threaten to kill you earlier.”

“No,  -sorry, yes- I’ll go, this conversation will be  -pardon-  important.”

“Suit yourself then.” She said before walking over to Alisa to talk to her about what she just saw.

Ruth went down to the brig, Rogue and Gambit were leaving just as she got to the room. They seemed surprised that she was going to see what Mystique had to say to her, but they decided to leave her to it.

Mystique was sitting alone in her cell, having recovered from Gambit having knocked her out earlier. 

“So you say you’re Irene’s granddaughter, huh?”

“Great granddaughter,  -sorry-  actually.”

Mystique looked her up and down before saying, “Ha, I guess you kind of do look like her, in a way.”

“Why did you  -thank you-  ask to see me?”

“I’ve given some thought about what Irene was telling me to come here for. She said I’d find a piece of her. I assumed that meant some way to bring her back, I am realizing now that I was wrong.”

“What do you  -pardon-  think she meant then?”

“I think she meant I’d find you, Ruth.”

The conversation didn’t go on for too much longer after that. Ruth went back to her room and passed out on her bed almost immediately. Her coming back woke Pixie up early again but she ignored her. Ruth was left with a lot to ponder after today, and a lot of potential futures to worry about, but at the moment she was simply interested in enjoying some rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading my fic! This is the first thing I've written ever so any feed back would be greatly appreciated!


End file.
